Job Well Done Award goes to 2 South African Sports teams

Two South African sports teams did the country proud this past weekend: the South African National Cricket team (also known as the Proteas) and the South African National Sevens Rugby team (also known as the Blitzbokke).

The Proteas played their second One Day International match in their 3 match series against India on Sunday in Durban. They had already won their first match against them on the 5th of December (Thursday last week) by 141 runs at the Wanderers in the Johannesburg and were really eager to clinch the series in two matches. This South African sports team won yesterday’s match thanks to 106 runs (from 118 balls) by Quinton De Kock and 100 runs (from 117 balls) by Hashim Amla. Thanks to them South Africa reached a total of 280 for 6 in their innings. De Kock and Amla managed to stay together for 35.1 overs and built up an opening partnership of 194 runs (which is a new record at the Wanderers). They managed to pull this off, despite the fact that the match start was delayed for 90 minutes and reduced to only 49 overs.

India’s response didn’t go so well. The visitors were three wickets down for only 29 runs. Two of their best batsmen (Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli) were bowled out for ducks. South African bowlers Lonwabo Tsotsobe (4 wickets), Morne Morkel (3 wickets) and Dale Steyn (wickets) bowled very well and did the home team proud. Thanks to them India were 6 wickets down before they could reach 100 runs and were bowled out for  only 146 runs. The Proteas won by 131 runs.

The Blitzbokke won the Cell C Nelson Mandela Bay Sevens tournament yesterday. They beat New Zealand by 17 points to 14 in the final. The tournament was held on Saturday in Port Elizabeth. The Blitzbokke breezed through the quarterfinals (beating Portugal by 45 points to zero) and the semifinals (beating Argentina by 31 points to zero), but they needed to overcome some of their own demons to win their home tournament. The last time that this South African sports team had won this tournament was in 2008 (in George) and they were up against New Zealand (who had won seven of the last 10 tournaments in South Africa).

The Blitzbokke had to dig deep to win yesterday’s final, especially after being 14 points behind in the first half of the match. They bounced backed and were only 2 points behind on the break. The team eventually won thanks to a try by the South African captain, Kyle Brown (who had a swollen knee and could have been ruled out for the match). The Blitzbokke kept the New Zealand team pinned in the 22 in the final minutes of the match and kept them from scoring against them.

Lately most of South Africa has been in mourning because our former president, Nelson Mandela, died last week Thursday. Both these teams have done their country very proud by winning their respective tournaments and have reminded us that sport has the ability to unite us. It’s just what the people of SA needs to keep up their spirits. For this reason, we’re presenting both these teams with our third Job Well Done Award.

For future Job Well Done Awards, keep your eye on the Job Mail blog or follow the #JobWellDoneSA hashtag on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

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